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About Something I Expected To Be Different
Product Description Of Beckman’s follow-up collection to his APR-Honickman award winning first book, Tomaz Salamun writes: "There are no similarities with Apollinaire or Ginsberg, except with what they were doing to Time while they were young." The contemplative poems of this collection unfurl in startling and beautiful new ways. From Publishers Weekly Attempting to reclaim money worries and heartbreak from the grip of pop songs, Beckman's follow-up to the APR/Honnickman-winning debut Things Are Happening ardently investigates the hapless repetitions of being young and coming into contact with other people, and of writing. Of the five poems in the book all taking up the varying geography of human relations the opening "Ode To the Air Traffic Controller" is the shortest, with two pages juxtaposing city names and relevant associations ("Acceptance, Vancouver, Tehran, Maui/ school children balloons light nothing"), while "Leave New York" ("Leave New York or the poem will kill you") laments that city's seductive money suck for gourmands of all sorts: "Do not spend $1.00 on two scallion pancakes/ .Do not hail a ten dollar cab to blow off steam/ and smoke his back seat up/ and watch the meter jump by quarters./ Do not spend $7.50 on AXE HANDLES by Gary Snyder/ Do not spend $35.00 on the collected anyone." Beckman's liturgical rhythm and common-folk sense of humor can veer into the slack and sentimental, as in the final "Block Island": "You need my love/ and I give you a poem, you need my understanding/ and I give you the criticism/ of love's temperature always changing." But such lines feel more consciously not taken out than unconsciously left in, as the speaker's earnestness forbids tampering with the evidence, and "New York says/ do not regret, continue// It says prosper mighty anecdotal life." (May)Forecast: Beckman has published his first two books in highly visible fledgling ventures, and both books are strong enough to merit the publishing interest they should begin to generate. Multiple generations of New York School readers, however, will recognize Beckman as the real thing, and follow his career with interest no matter where he publishes. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Review America and its readers are lucky to have him. -- Ernest Hilbert, BoldType Beckman's ever-present "vibrations" are genuinely "heartfelt," the perceptible thrum of a poet who resists concealing his visceral and emotional impressions. -- Slope Magazine About the Author Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His previous books include Your Time Has Come, and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer. He lives in Seattle and New York.
